Lepiota Arminea Mushroom

Non Edible Mushrooms, Pacific Northwest

The Lepiota Arminea Mushrooms have white spores, free gills and no volva. The lepiota mushrooms are a fragile fungi that typically have caps less than 6 cm wide.

Their caps are dry and mostly white but some have small blackish, brown or reddish brown scales that form concentrically as the cap disc expands. The scales are a intrinsic part of the cap. Some species bruise an immediate bright red while others do not bruise and some bruise more slowly some shade of brown to blackish.

The white or yellow gills are close together and the stalk breaks cleanly from the cap. A ring may be present, but it often collapses to just a bare outline on the stalk and is rarely prominent. The stalk below the ring area is usually scaly. The spore print is white to cream.

The numerous lepiota species are even more difficult than the amanita species to identify. To know whether they are poisonous or not, and if poisonous, whether amanitin has been detected. Even mycologists have trouble with these mushrooms. Most lepiota have an unpleasant rubber like smell, with a sweet component. However, most of the toxic ones often have a seductively sweetish smell.

You would do well to consider these mushrooms dangerous and leave them alone.